Nokia CTO takes ‘leave of absence’

Was it a dispute over MeeGo?

Nokia’s chief technology officer (CTO) Rich Green has taken a leave of absence from the mobile phone company after having joined just a year ago.

According to a Nokia spokesperson, Green is leaving to attend to a “personal matter” and the company has not provided a specific timetable for his return.

Green became Nokia’s fourth CTO in five years when he joined in 2010 after 19 years at Sun Microsystems.

The company’s head of Nokia Research Centre, Henry Tirri, will take over Green’s responsibilities during his absence.

Media reports have claimed that the CTO has left over strategic differences.

The BBC said that Green was a “champion” of the Linux-based MeeGo mobile operating system that Nokia recently abandoned for Microsoft’s Window’s Phone software.

Earlier this month, Nokia provided a stark profit warning due to plummeting sales of devices and services as it announced plans to move to a strategy of selling phones built around the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system. The company said it has "increased confidence" that the first of its smartphones with Windows Phone will ship in the fourth quarter.